<p>Pitt gives great merit aid. It provides lots of full tuition scholarships to OOS students and the application is easy (always a bonus). Apply early to Pitt for best merit consideration. Also Southwest flies into Pittsburgh; does it fly to St. Louis?</p>
<p>As someone who went to high school in Missouri and who had tons of classmates going to Mizzou, I couldn’t agree less with this statement:</p>
<p>"FWIW, I think the experience at most flagship universities is very similar. In other words, Mizzou, UNC, and Wisconsin are much more alike than they are different."</p>
<p>UNC and UW (along with Michigan, UIUC, etc.) are universities that have more of a national reach than Mizzou, which, aside from journalism, is going to be rather meaningless to anyone outside of Missouri. If the OP wants to live in St. Louis or KC the rest of his life, then yeah, Mizzou will suit him just fine. If he has different aspirations, then those other universities may suit him better. (Whether it’s worth the cost difference only his family can answer.) But to suggest that UNC and UW and Mizzou are interchangeable – I can’t agree with that. UNC and UW are on a different platform.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl: Mizzou Business School and the Honors College program are gaining national reputation. We have friends both instate and out-of-state who were way more impressed with their visit to Mizzou than UNC for their business major sons.</p>
<p>A student who excels at any state flagship will have doors open for graduate opportunties. When we visited MIT, we made sure to have dinner with a friend who got his BS in engineering from Mizzou and whose wife get hers at Maryland. They BOTH have masters and PhDs now from MIT–at no cost to them.</p>